The Markandeya Purana is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas and takes its name from Sage Markandeya. It opens as Sage Jaimini, a disciple of Sage Veda Vyasa, brings him four questions about the Mahabharata, among them why Krishna, though beyond all qualities, took a human birth. Sage Markandeya sends him to four wise birds in a cave of the Vindhya hills; the birds answer him, and then relate Sage Markandeya's own teaching to a disciple, which fills the rest of the Purana's 137 chapters.
Through the birds the Purana tells of King Harishchandra, who gave up his kingdom, his family and his freedom rather than break his word to Sage Vishwamitra, and then would not enter heaven unless his people came with him; of Queen Madalasa, who taught her elder sons from infancy that the Self in each of them was pure; and of Dattatreya, born to Sage Atri and Anasuya, who teaches yoga to Madalasa's son Alarka. Its account of the fourteen ages of Manu holds the Devi Mahatmya, chapters 81 to 93, and a set of its chapters is given to the praise of Surya, the Sun.
Read on its own as the Durga Saptashati, the Devi Mahatmya is recited through the nine nights of Navratri, and its account of the Goddess's victory over Mahishasura is honoured at Saptashrungi in Maharashtra and at Chamundeshwari above Mysuru, the city that takes its name from him. Dattatreya, whose birth and teaching these chapters tell, is worshipped at the Datta temples of Ganagapur and Narsobawadi, and at Mahur, where one of its three hills is Datta Shikhar and another holds Renuka's temple.